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KEANU REEVES BIOGRAPHY |
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Keanu Charles Reeves was born September 2, 1964
in Beirut, Lebanon, to Samuel Nowlin Reeves (half-Hawaiian, half-Chinese)
and Patric Taylor (English). After their divorce, Patric and
Samuel went their separate ways. Keanu visited his father in
Hawaii on occasion until he was thirteen. That was the last time
Keanu saw him. Keanu attended Jesse Ketchum Public School in
Toronto from kindergarten through the eighth grade, and attended
four high schools (including De La Salle College and the Toronto
School for the Performing Arts) before dropping out completely
at age 17. Keanu took on lots of different jobs, including
sharpening skates at an ice rink shop (he's an avid hockey
player), landscaping, and making pasta (and managing the place
to boot!). Then came some stage work (most notably - and
notoriously - Wolfboy in 1984, his professional stage debut) and
some bit parts on TV.
His motion picture debut was in Dream To Believe in Canada but
it [reportedly] was the 1986 TV movie Under the Influence that
earned him his SAG union card. Keanu's first big feature film
debut in a US film was in Youngblood in which he had a small
part. Keanu hit the road for Hollywood in 1986 with $3,000, an
old Volvo, and his stepfather Paul Aaron's address. Keanu soon
landed River's Edge, arguably one of his best roles ever. A
string of movies followed (see CREDITS) as the troubled (or
misfit) teen. His parts continued to grow, and then he started
attracting the eye of more mainstream directors. He landed films
like Dangerous Liaisons, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Much Ado About
Nothing, and Little Buddha.
But it was 1994's Speed that really made everyone stand up and
notice. Perhaps not so much for Keanu's acting, but the fact
that this was his first mega-hit, grossing nearly $300 million
at the box office (world-wide). Figures like that will catch the
eye of any studio executive, and Keanu was soon reportedly being
offered sums up to $7 million for his services. With Johnny
Mnemonic and A Walk in the Clouds already in the can, those
offers were put on hold or turned down so that Keanu could
return to Canada and fulfill a dream of playing the title role
in Hamlet on stage. Reviews were mixed, but in general reviewers
were kind and some were enthusiastic.
More films followed: Feeling Minnesota, Chain Reaction and The
Last Time I Committed Suicide, which did moderately at the box
office. Keanu was then offered the lead in the sequel to Speed,
entitled Speed II. But he felt the script was not good and he
turned it down. Everyone accused Keanu of making a horrible
mistake; and that he should have done the role. 20th Century
Fox, not wishing to disclose the real reason Keanu turned it
down (bad script), gave out a press release saying that Keanu
turned it down so he could tour with his band, Dogstar. In fact,
that was not true. Keanu was offered a better script (Devil's
Advocate) and he filmed that at the same time as the disastrous
Speed II was filmed. Devil's Advocate was a big hit and Speed II
sunk at the box office. Suddenly critics were saying how smart
Keanu was for turning down Speed II.
The it was off to Australia to film The Matrix. No one knew what
to expect from this, and when it opened in the spring of 1999 it
was a huge blockbuster, and brought Keanu back front and center
in the public eye and catapulted him into the top ranks of money
earners with an asking salary of $20 million per picture. In the
summer of 1999 Keanu filmed The Replacements, and finished out
the year with The Watcher. Both of those pictures were released
in the year 2000. In 2000, Keanu went on to film three more
films, The Gift, Sweet November, and Hardball including two
sequels to The Matrix. |
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